New Economy 06.15–07.28.2007
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NEW ECONOMY 06.15–07.28.2007 M a i N s p a ce New Economy Chantal Akerman Artists Space Kader Attia June 15–July 28, 2007 Ursula Biemann Curated by João Ribas Mike Bouchet Heath Bunting Los Carpinteros Carolina Caycedo Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel Harun Farocki Eva and Franco Mattes a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG Cildo Meireles Henrik Plenge Jakobsen Oliver Ressler Joe Scanlan Santiago Sierra Rirkrit Tiravanija Milica Tomic Donelle Woolford “The basic economic resource—‘the and communications media had a process of subsumption: just as was the rise of the ‘socialized’ worker, means of production,’ to use the supposedly fixed economic fluctuations capital had to ‘industrialize’ in the a mutation of abstract labor resulting economists’ term—is no longer capital, and led to a steady pattern of economic 19th century, it has to ‘information- from the decentralization of production nor natural resources, nor ‘labor’…. growth, hitting fever-pitch in the alize’ today. In the words of Walter and an emphasis on communication, Value is now created by ‘productivity’ Dot-com boom. Wriston, a former chairman of creativity, and innovation. and ‘innovation,’ both applications The dominant economic model Citigroup, “when the world’s most As information technology of knowledge to work.” became that of the circulation precious resource is immaterial, theorist Shalini Venturelli has of disembodied entities, such as the economic doctrines, social argued, “a nation without a vibrant —Peter Drucker information, derivatives, copyright, structures, and political systems creative labor force of artists, writers, Post-Capitalist Society and social relationships, and the that evolved in a world devoted to the designers, scriptwriters, playwrights, eventual assimilation of such service of matter become rapidly ill painters, and musicians,” would The term “New Economy” emerged technological utopianism throughout suited to cope with the new situation.” not possess the necessary base to after the Cold War to define the the entire global marketplace. This lay behind Robert Reich’s succeed in this new economic model. postindustrial economic order. As a Industrial economies gave way to argument, as secretary of labor Creative enterprise has become a knowledge-driven form of post-Fordist social productivity and circulation of under President Bill Clinton, for the determining economic factor: accord- capitalism originating in the 1950s, electronic capital, the informatisation assimilation of manufacturing jobs ing to the Intellectual Property it heralded the productive power of production expanding just as into the creative economy through Association, its related sectors are of information and communication readily throughout the technology the development of new skills. estimated to be worth “$360 billion a technology as the new engine of sector as through the remnants His case was seemingly oblivious to year, making them more valuable than global markets, ‘flexible accumulation’ of the ‘matter’ industry, that is, from the fact that a new specialized sector automobiles, agriculture, or aerospace.” serving as the catalyst for an economic new media technologies to automobile might not absorb such displaced mass But if the knowledge and model concerned with the production, manufacturing. labor (thereby creating a ‘relative information-based sectors of major processing, and distribution of Immaterial production thus surplus population’ of the chronically economies are increasingly valued information, and favoring ideas, began to assert a central role underemployed). The goal was to as the driving force of economic services, and sociability over in global markets, as the economics educate a knowledgeable, rather development, and work is increasingly inert commodities and industrial labor. of information shaped even non- than standardized, work force to act governed by creativity and social The ‘new economy’ and the corres- immaterial aspects of production as the catalyst of economic growth productivity, what is the role of artistic ponding expansion of broad non- (such as the ‘flexibilization’ of labor). through a redefinition of labor and practice in this political economy? industrial sectors of Western nations The U.S. economy, for example, the social character of work. Are artists acting as migrant laborers gave rise to a transnational market in began to demassify in the post-Cold Yet as capital seemingly demater- who produce ‘artisanalized’ infor- which, according to Wired magazine War era, with the information and ialized, a correlative ‘remapping’ of mation? Is studio practice a localized in 1998, “people work with their brains service- based sector accounting for labor occurred, as so-called industrial form of resistance to immaterial instead of their hands,” and where a large percentage of the total economies looked to downsizing capitalism? “innovation is more important than economy (30% of the workforce by some and structural underemployment in In the era of information as mass production.” statistics). According to a major study response to increasing automation capital, artistic labor seems placed As Daniel Bell had presaged conducted in 2004, the US information and flexibilization of labor. The result in a specific political position in terms decades earlier, the central role sector “grew about 46% in 1967 was an outsourcing phenomenon, of new economy ideology and new knowledge production and capital to about 56% in 1992, and to 63% a kind of spatial reorganization social structures defining the global mobility played in this information in 1997.” of capital flows: industrial economies labor market. New Economy surveys economy focused on development While only accounting for a shifted their manufacturing sector the nature of artistic practice in this in the ‘intangible’ sectors of production, fraction of the total global labor force to areas with cheaper wage labor, and post-Fordist era, while also focusing as an ascendant ‘creative class’ and thus concentrated geopolitically, concentrated domestic investment on artists who are dealing with the leveraged the capacity of information this new composition of ‘knowledge- on non-industrial and non-agricultural social conditions and redefinitions of through technology. By the mid-1990s, based’ labor exerted a hegemony over sectors. Concomitant with that spatial labor implicit in the information-based large-scale investment in information all other forms of production through organization of information capitalism, model of postindustrial economies. 6. a RT i s T s s p a CE NEW ECONOMY 6.5 One of the most significant issues supposed ‘frictionless’ economy. cinema as a symptom of the ongoing phenomenon of the 1990s). From is seen in the rise of migrant labor Kader Attia’s illegal sweatshop, used disappearance of industrial labor in diametrically opposed ends, both policy debates in Europe and the U.S. to produce his own branded ‘Hallal’ the 20th century. Santiago Sierra and Rirkrit Tiravanija While the idea of a common European goods, similarly makes visible The nature of labor is also the confront this condition, either by market implies a borderless circulation the conditions of labor that lie behind source of the collective work of outright politicized manipulation of capital—in the ‘neo-medievalist’ the functioning economy of many Havana-based artists Los Carpinteros of divisions of labor—as in the Europe of decentralized power and subaltern populations. and of French duo Daniel Dewar rounding up of beggars in Mexico transnational governance—borders If practice itself becomes a way to and Grégory Gicquel. In their work, City in Sierra’s 100 Indigentes themselves are in fact contested in reconfigure artistic labor, and mobility artistic practice is a means to call on (2005)—or the creation of conditions order to stem the flow of migrant and social production are embraced older forms of production—including that highlight an increasing commod- labor displaced by the ‘new economy.’ as potentially socially progressive, this the medium of drawing for Los ification of social relationships Yet through the proliferation of art is because contemporary art practice Carpinteros—to assert that the role over democratic processes, seen in fairs, biennials, and the transnational has in fact long been driven by infor- of creative labor in the new economy Tiravanija’s work, such as Untitled character of artistic production today, mation, from conceptualism and is as significant to artistic production (Artificial Flavor) (1991). artists seem to function increasingly the dematerialization of the art object as the shift from craftsman to Karl Marx diagnosed the as part of a knowledge-labor sector to relational aesthetics and new media inspired artist in 15th-century Italy. transformation of the capitalist mode that flows across neoliberal borders. art. One of the most prescient uses By drawing on the artist’s studio as of production reflected in this Is there any condition for criticality of this relationship is the appropriation a site of almost artisanal production, practice in the Grundrisse der Kritik or political agency when artists of the e-commerce model by Heath the work of Dewar & Gicquel seems der Politischen Ökonomie of 1858: are positioned directly in contrast to Bunting several years before the to propose a kind of resistance to the the marginal elements of the body Paypal system of electronic payment. conditions of informational capital, Labor no longer appears so politic, afforded rights, such as that Skint—The